


to build a home

by adhoori



Series: I built a home (for you, for me) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), but turned out to be a rewrite, this was supposed to be a fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adhoori/pseuds/adhoori
Summary: They’re in the middle of dinner/planning the time heist when Scott says it. “Okay, but...why don’t we all just go back to 2018, get the stones from when Thanos had them in the gauntlet. They’re all in one place and we don’t have to split up.”It’s silent for about ten seconds before everyone starts speaking.





	to build a home

**Author's Note:**

> The premise is inspired by [this post](https://peterssquill.tumblr.com/post/184712397466/peterssquill-no-offense-but-the-avengers-are). Unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine.

They’re in the middle of dinner/planning the time heist when Scott says it. “Okay, but...why don’t we all just go back to 2018, get the stones from when Thanos had them in the gauntlet. They’re all in one place and we don’t have to split up.”

It’s silent for about ten seconds before everyone starts speaking.

“How can we-”

“I’m in.”

“Yes, but we don’t-”

“Okay, but that’s a pretty big breach-”

“I don’t think time travel-”

“Didn’t you say the quantum realm-”

Steve looks at Natasha who hasn’t said anything. She looks like she’s considering it and to be honest, so is he. There seems to be no stopping the others though, because he can already see Tony and Bruce start debating about the quantum realm in terms that _no one else_ _understands_ , while Rhodey seems to be explaining the logistics (or the lack thereof) to Thor and Rocket, and Scott just looks like he regrets opening his mouth.

“What do you think?”

He’s brought out of his thoughts by Natasha’s question. “I think it could work. You?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so too.”

They look around them and it doesn’t look like anyone seems to be stopping, so Steve moves closer to the table before raising his voice to be heard over the noise. “Okay, _enough_. I think Scott’s right,” he says and tries to hold back a smile at the wide-eyed look on Scott’s face.

Once he has everyone’s attention, Steve continues. “Let’s be honest, none of us know a whole lot about the stones. We barely understand them and we barely understand time travel. Maybe it works better if we don’t split up. We know how to kill Thanos now, there will be no mistakes this time.”

Tony is the first to speak up. “Okay, are we just going to ignore the part where our alternate versions - past selves??? - are going to _see their clones_ come in and kill him and then _take the gauntlet._  What does that do to that timeline?”

Bruce nods. “The ramifications for that timeline….they could be anything. We don’t know. It’s a risk. Like I said, this isn’t my area of expertise.”

“Bruce, what if you and Tony go talk to the Ancient One in 2012 New York, gather some intel, get back to us and then we do this thing,” Nat says, propping her feet up on the table.

Scott’s shaking his head even before she’s finished. “We don’t have enough Pym particles for them to do that and then for all of us to go to Wakanda. Unless some of us stay behind.”

For once, everyone seems to be lost and the only sounds come from their forks scraping the takeout containers. No one wants to stay behind, obviously. Steve looks at them and maybe has a plan. Okay, plan- _ish._  He looks at Nat who looks like she knows what he’s thinking and that his idea is either brave or stupid and considering it’s him, probably both.

“I think I might have a way around that.”

***

“You sure you wanna do this alone?”

Steve looks at her as she leans against the door, hip cocked, looking casual to the untrained eye but he knows Nat. She doesn’t wear her armor around him as much. Lets him see her worry her lips in a nervous gesture.

“In case it doesn’t work out...it’s-it’s best if we conserve the Pym particles.”

“It’s dangerous, Steve,” she admits, quietly and Steve sees it for what it is. _I can’t lose you too._

He forces a smile on his face as he walks towards her. “Hi, I’m Steve Rogers, I don’t think we’ve met before.”

Nat huffs out a laugh although it comes with a punch on his arm. “Oh,  _now_ you crack jokes.”

“Coping mechanism.”

“I think it’s only a coping mechanism if you’re actually funny,” she says, as they walk towards the time machine.

Steve makes sure the device is clasped tightly to his wrist, under Nat’s watchful eye.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he says, trying to project confidence. This has to work. It _has_ to.

She looks like she sees through it anyway. “Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll see you in a minute.”

***

He pulls it off. It _worked._  He has the Pym particles and his half-assed plan actually worked for once and no one caught him and what he _should_ be doing is heading back but he finds himself outside Peggy’s office and maybe can just-maybe just for a minute.

Steve doesn’t know where to look first. There’s not much in the office, but he steps in and there are bits of her everywhere. Just, the way things are arranged, the way it’s clean and functional and yet, somehow personal at the same time. He sees the pictures on the desk, one of him and one of her family and feels...grateful, above anything else. There’s no one left who knew him from before, not where he’s from, anyway. Suddenly, he hears a noise and maybe Nat was right and he should’ve been more careful. _Of course, Nat was right, he’s a goddamn moron_  because he hears the click of a gun and a “Hands where I can see them,” in a voice that’s unmistakably Peggy Carter.

“Go on, do it. Turn around slowly.”

He takes a deep breath and does. He’s so fucked, this probably alters some kind of timeline or something and oh god, how is he going to explain _time travel._  He can see her jaw tighten and her fingers grip the gun harder.

“Who sent you?”

“Peggy, it’s- it’s me.”

“He _died_.”

Steve looks at her and god she’s beautiful. Older too, with crows feet near her eyes, laugh lines and that’s- that’s good. It meant she had a happy life, and he knows she did, she told him so, but to see it, it’s something else.

So instead he says, “You found him.”

“Found who?”

“The right partner,” he says, lips curling up into a tremulous smile.

“You- _Steve?_ ”

“Told you, it’s me.”

She puts the gun down and crosses her arms across her chest. “I’m listening.”

***

He explains it best as he can, glossing over anything major, tells her as much as he can without giving too much away. “I swear, I’m not-I’m telling the truth, I know it sounds crazy.”

“I suppose it’s nice to know this isn’t a hallucination.”

He huffs out a laugh, feeling a lot more at ease when her shoulders lose their tension. “No, but it’s uh- probably best you treat it as one. So it doesn’t, you know- alter the timeline too much,” he says.

“Right. Because you _time traveled_.”

“You’re taking this very well.”

“Yes, well, I did see you grow twice your size so,” she says, lips twitching.

It’s hard not to look at her and think of what it could’ve been. He doesn’t love her anymore, not in the same way, it’s been so long but there was a time when he thought he might ask her to marry him, grow old with him, have a family, and he swallows around the words in his throat, till they’re not threatening to spill.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, in lieu of anything else.

Her face softens and she smiles at him, kind and knowing. “You never did learn how to be on time.”

“Think maybe I could still have that dance?”

***

It’s not so much a dance as it is just the two of them swaying, but it feels- it feels like closure. And so he rests his chin and tries to remember everything about this moment, just the way it is. The way she looks, the way he feels...sad isn’t quite it. Mostly he just feels like he missed out on knowing her. _Really_ knowing her.

Peggy breaks the silence first. “You look different,” she murmurs. “Older too,” she says teasingly.

“Thanks, Pegs,” he quips drily, even as she pulls back from him, smiling.

“In this...future of yours, you’re happy?”

“Getting there,” he answers, and it comes out more honest than he’d thought it would.

She nods imperceptibly and he straightens up, it's time.

“You have to go,” she says.

“Yeah, I- sorry. This wasn’t, you weren’t supposed to see me,” he explains, stumbling over words.

“I know. Thank you anyway.” She gives him a brief hug and a fleeting kiss on his cheek. “Go home, Steve.”

 _Home._ And it _was_ home. He didn’t belong here, no matter how nostalgic he felt. This wasn’t home, this wasn’t where his team was, where his _life_ was.

He checks on the Pym particles one last time, takes one last look at her and leaves.

***

He barely steps off the time machine when Nat is right there, glaring. “You’re late.”

Steve smiles a half smile, suddenly tired. “Sorry, I had a date.” He watches her bite back whatever she’d been about to say and slips an arm around her, grateful. “Are Tony and Bruce-”

“Any minute now,” she says. “C’mon, they’re waiting for you inside, we thought something might’ve gone wrong.”

***

So it turns out, Scott was right. Tony has that look on his face like he’s mad he didn’t think about this and it almost makes Steve laugh.

“So if we go back and I just...go for the head and we get the stones, it should work?” Thor sounds a little incredulous and Steve’s not sure he can blame him. It almost sounds doable and if it works-if they-he refuses to let himself think of that.

“Sounds too easy, doesn’t it?” he says instead.

“Think we deserve a little easy after this shit show,” Rhodey says. “So. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Tony says, nodding.

***

“What was it like?”

Steve doesn’t have to ask what _it_ means. They’re up way before everyone else, sprawled over the grass after several rounds of sparring.

“It was nice. I never thought I’d see her again, you know?”

Nat smiles fondly. “You get that dance?”

“Yeah, yeah I did,” he says, huffing out a laugh.

“Alright, Rogers, get itttt,” she jokes. “Maybe when this is over you can finally go on a date in this century for once.”

“What is it with you and setting me up?”

“Just wanna see you happy,” and it’s so forthright, with no hidden sentiment, that he doesn’t quite know what to say.

***

Steve’s not quite sure how to put into words the feeling of going back in time to Wakanda only to see their past selves in battle. He sees Sam and Bucky, and they’re real and they’re alive and mostly he just wants to say _fuck it_ and tell them to run. He looks at everyone else and they all look like how he feels until Scott pipes up with a “Guys?”, effectively breaking the spell.

Steve takes a deep breath and nods. “Let’s do this. We have to be quick, in and out. Hawkeye, you ready?”

“In position, Cap. Waiting for your signal.”

So far, no one’s seen them, and if they do this right, no one will. He looks at their past selves, battle worn, down for the count. He watches Thanos add the mind stone to the gauntlet, and sees Thor getting ready to attack with Stormbreaker. It strikes him suddenly, that past-Thor might get to Thanos before Clint does and that he needs to do something about it and somehow he just. He _knows._  He looks at Thor beside him. “You trust me?”

“What’d you have in mind?”

Steve closes his eyes and hopes to god this works and holds out his hand and for a second he thinks it didn’t until he can almost _feel it_ and before he can finish that thought, Stormbreaker is in his hand.

Thor looks triumphant. “I _knew_ it!”

Steve lets it go as quickly as he caught it, and certainly before past-Thor can do anything about it. Hopefully, it’s bought them some time. “Hawkeye, _now_.”

In some ways, it’s over before they have any time to process it. Clint shoots an exploding arrow towards Thanos which is enough of a distraction for Thor to sever his head with Nebula holding him off, while the rest of them focus on the gauntlet. If they weren’t so fucking _done_ with this asshole, Steve might’ve been able to dredge up a laugh at the look of horror on his face. But he’s _done_ , he’s _so done_ with losing and losing and losing until there’s barely anything left to lose anymore.

***

They get back to the compound, gauntlet in hand, thrumming with adrenaline and a quiet sort of determination.

Tony’s the first to break the silence. “It worked. We did it.”

Steve looks around, cursorily checking everyone for injuries. “Everyone okay?”

“We’re good Steve,” Nat says, and she’s right. They _are._  They’re exhausted and worn but they’re fine. Alive. Better than alive, they _won._

Rhodey straightens up from where he’s been standing, cracking his neck. “Should we- do we do this now?”

Everyone’s...everyone’s looking at him, he realizes. He’s in charge and oh god, if it doesn’t work, if this doesn’t work, if they don’t bring people back he’s not sure-

“This is going to work, Rogers,” Tony says, bringing him out of his head.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we did everything we could.”

“Yeah, yeah okay. Let’s do this.”

“It should be me,” Thor says and Steve shakes his head.

“Let’s think about this. I’m not losing anyone else, I refuse to.”

“I’ve been sitting around all this time-let me do this. Let me do something good, something right.”

“No. It’s not just that this channels enough energy to light up a continent, you’re in no condition,” Tony says.

“It’s gotta be me,” Bruce intervenes. “We saw what those stones did to Thanos, none of you can survive that.”

“How do we know you will?”

“We don’t.”

Steve doesn’t like where this is headed. “Bruce-”

“The radiation’s mostly gamma, Steve. It’s gotta be me.”

He relents and the shift in the atmosphere is palpable, they’re battle ready again.

Steve holds the shield close and watches everyone slip into formation.

“Remember, everyone and everything that Thanos dusted five years ago? We’re just bringing them back to now, to today,” Tony says, before getting into armor and activating Friday’s barndoor protocol on the off chance this goes south. Steve looks at Nat and she nods back at him, jaw clenched.

Steve takes a fortifying breath as Bruce puts the gauntlet on. It’s quiet for a beat before the gauntlet starts emitting radiation, waves over waves of it until Bruce is on his knees, his arm glowing with electricity and flayed skin.

Thor looks scared for him. “Take it off!”

Steve shakes his head. “No, wait, Bruce are you okay?”

“Talk to me, Banner,” Tony says and Steve’s rethinking this, maybe they can’t pull this off, maybe they needed to get in touch with Carol, maybe-

“I’m okay, guys. I’m fine,” Bruce grunts.

For how monumental it is, it’s decidedly anticlimactic. Bruce snaps his fingers and falls to the ground even as they rush towards him. Tony stabilizes his arm and Steve winces, as Bruce clutches his arm in pain.

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know, I-”

“It worked,” Clint says, his voice choked up.

Steve begins to ask “How do you-” but cuts himself off when he sees what Clint is showing them. Laura. Calling him, and _oh._  They did it. He can feel it too, as Friday opens up the compound. They can hear the birds, there’s- there’s background noise he didn’t even realize he was missing and the relief is overwhelming.

***

They stabilize Bruce while Tony checks on Pepper and Morgan. The numbers on their trackers decline steadily as missing people come back and Steve...he’s exhausted. Tired, down to his bones, and they still haven’t seen Sam or Bucky or _Peter_ and god he was just a kid, and they’re not back-

“On your left.”

He looks behind him and the entry to the compound is lit with portals, people stepping out, looking as dazed as he felt, before he looks at Sam and Bucky. They look the same like they’d never left and Steve blinks back tears as he walks towards them, pulling Sam into a fierce hug, and then Bucky.

Distantly, he can see Tony as he does the same to Peter and he knows that it’s not over yet, that there’s a world to build back up, that the snap didn’t undo any of the trauma of the past five years, not for the people who were left behind anyway, but in this moment he’s as close to happy as he’s ever been.

***

They begin rebuilding. Not just them, not just the Avengers, but _people._  They come together in a show of unity that leaves Steve humbled and thankful. The old and the new, the _before_ and _after_ come together, slowly inching towards something like stability. Steve buys an apartment in Brooklyn and doesn’t see anyone for a week. It’s too much. He wonders how many times you can lose something before it breaks you and finds that he doesn’t want to know the answer. At the end of the week, when the apartment is obsessively clean, he looks at the shield that’s propped up against the wall and realizes he doesn’t want it anymore. It’s an oddly freeing thing to come to terms with. He thinks of the Steve whose sense of right and wrong was unshakable, the man who had an indisputable sense of duty towards doing what was right. And he’s still that Steve, but he thinks there are maybe other ways to help. Ways that don’t involve fighting and battle and blood. He goes to his first group meeting in a long time.

***

“My wife came back,” Lara explains. “It’s...it’s like, the past five years didn’t happen, for her. And I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, I don’t- I’d never wish that on anyone but I’ve changed. I love her, of course, I do but I’m different and I- I get nightmares, the other day she said something that triggered me and I’m not sure if we can ever go back to being the way we were,” she finishes, and Steve wants to say something, _anything,_  but there’s a reason he went to a different group and sat at the back. He feels…relieved almost. He wasn't alone. There were others who felt this way.

He leaves before they finish thanking her for sharing. He thinks he should be grateful to have everyone back, but all he feels is an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Like no one understood. He’s spent five years advising people to move on and some did, but now everything that was missing is back, so where do they go from here? It feels like it should be easier like it should be natural to go back to how everything was, but he feels off-kilter, shaken up.

Steve finds Natasha in the apartment when he opens it. He knows better than to ask how she got in and she has the clench in her jaw that tells him she has Things To Say To Him, so he just sits next to her on the couch. Her eyes flit over his face, observant as always before her face eases into something more understanding.

“Don’t shut us out like that again.”

Steve feels his eyes sting, the week and maybe the past five years catching up to him and he lets the tears spill. “I don’t want to fight anymore,” he says and it feels like a weight off his chest.

She knocks her knee to his and says, “We’ll figure it out,” like it’s that easy. Maybe it is. “Now get off your ass. We’re all going to Tony’s for dinner.”

“Oh, that’s a thing?”

“It is now. We’re family, Steve. We stick together.”

 _Family._ He swallows around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, yeah you’re right.”

***

He sees Sam and Bucky on the porch with beers in hand and Natasha slinks away, sensing he needs a moment. Steve walks up to them, shield in hand.

“Sorry I haven’t been around,” he says. “I just- I needed some time.”

“It’s okay, man, we get it,” Sam says, genuine and kind in a way that Steve had almost forgotten what it felt like.

He hands the shield to Sam and it feels like the right thing when Bucky smiles a half smile like he knows, and he probably does. Steve’s never been a hard read, and certainly not to Bucky.

“How’s it feel?”

“Like it’s someone else’s,” Sam says, surprised.

“It isn’t.”

“Steve-”

“You can say no, of course you can. But I’m done, Sam.”

Sam looks at him, considering. “Thank you. I’ll do my best.”

“That’s why it’s yours,” he says, smiling. It feels right like nothing has, in a long time.

“I’ll leave you two alone. See you inside.”

“Thanks, pal.” He looks at Bucky and wonders how to explain what it’s been like. Wonders if there’s a set of words that he can say that can maybe translate what he feels, what he’s _been feeling._  Bucky looks like he gets it anyway.

“You do anything stupid while I was gone?”

Steve huffs out a laugh. “How could I? You took all the stupid with you.”

“Punk.”

Steve pulls him into a hug. “Jerk,” and then “I’m sorry,” because he _was._

“‘S’okay,” Bucky says, smiling. “Heard you went back in time, you’ll have to tell me all about that.”

“I-yeah. Come stay with me. I mean, I have two spare bedrooms or, I don’t know, maybe not- I just-”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupts before he can continue with that trainwreck. “Yeah, I’m in.”

“Okay,” he says, smiling.

“One more thing,” and Bucky looks…nervous, almost.

“Anything, Buck. What is it?”

“I’m in love with you,” he says, sounding sure and confident like he didn’t just turn Steve’s world upside down.

***

The thing is... _the thing is,_  it only takes Steve a year after the snap and twelve group meetings to realize he’s in love with Bucky. Has been, maybe for years. Steve’s had four years to come to terms with this. To fill pages upon pages of sketchbooks in memory of Bucky, his best friend, the person who knew him better than anyone. To grieve the love of his life, to learn to talk about in him in ways that didn’t hurt. To hold this realization close, and make it part of himself, a part of who he is. To be able to say things that started with “Bucky used to” or “Bucky and I” and feel a dull ache that comes with remembering the _good_ things about the people you love and lose. Until recently, Steve hadn’t contemplated ever getting Bucky back, let alone getting to tell him that he loved him. So sue him, he’s feeling a little poleaxed by this.

Bucky continues to speak, and he sounds…calm. Assured, like he’s thought long and hard about this. “You don’t have to say, I mean, it’s alright, Steve. I thought we had time, _before,_  but we didn’t, and it’s been five years, for you, at least. I just- needed you to know.”

“I went to group meetings.”

“I- _what_?”

“It took me a year, to realize,” he says, moving closer and interlacing their fingers.

Bucky looks at their clasped hands and back at him, “Steve?”

“A year of talking about my feelings with strangers,” Steve continues.

“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Bucky says, teasing but vulnerable.

“Shut up, I’m trying to tell you something,” he counters. “It took me a year, Buck, and then- _god_ I spent four years trying to learn how to live without you,” he says, voice breaking.

“I’m here now. We’re okay, Stevie.”

He looks at Bucky who’s smiling fondly and he thinks yeah, okay, fuck it, he barely knew what he was trying to say anyway. “I love you too, Buck,” he says before kissing the smile off Bucky’s face and heading inside.

***

Steve builds a life he didn’t think he could have. He goes back to leading group therapy. It’s a little more _what do we do now that they’re back_ than _what do we do now that they’re gone_ but he likes it. Likes _helping,_ in a real, tangible way. Bucky takes up cooking and attacks it with sniper-like precision and focus that Steve is grateful for. Steve sets up a rooftop garden instead. It feels good, the dirt beneath his fingernails and the satisfaction of finally growing something. He fucks it up, once or twice. He learns overwatering is definitely a Thing but can’t bring himself to be too mad about it because it makes Bucky laugh. They fill their apartment with things because they can. An art print Steve liked, some blue china pottery from an antique store they found, throw pillows and blankets that Bucky has no self-control over and an enviable collection of fridge magnets. He builds a home with Bucky because they get to have that now.

***

It’s a rainy day and Steve lies on their couch, with the TV on, bleary-eyed and tired from a nightmare when Bucky shuffles out of their bedroom, blanket in hand.

“Shoulda woken me up,” he mumbles, settling behind Steve, hooking a leg over his leg, pressing a kiss to Steve’s neck. Steve lets himself be manhandled, thankful for their frankly, obscenely large couch.

“I’m fine, just couldn’t go back to sleep, Buck.”

“What time are we meeting Sam and Maria?”

“Six. S’early still,” he says, fighting a yawn.

“I’m probably going to fall asleep. Wake me up?”

Steve presses his lips to metal knuckles, laughing quietly when the plates whir a tiny bit. “Yeah, we’ve got time.”

And they do. All the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought! Here's the [rebloggable tumblr post](https://hasan-minhaj.tumblr.com/post/185329106738/to-build-a-home-by-adhoori-theyre-in-the) and I also have a [tumblr](https://hasan-minhaj.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/aseriesofnows) if you're into that :)


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